Louis Lauter

Louis Lauter is vice president for congressional and government affairs at CSIS, where he manages and promotes CSIS’s interactions with Congress and the executive branch. Prior to coming to CSIS, Mr. Lauter served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Legislative of Affairs, first as the team chief for acquisition, technology, and logistics and then as the acting principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs, where he was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service. Before entering government service, Mr. Lauter served for seven years as CSIS’s director of congressional affairs and earlier spent seven years working on national security issues in the Washington state congressional delegation, first for Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) and then for Representative Rick Larsen (D-WA). Mr. Lauter hails from the San Francisco Bay area, holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Washington and a master’s degree in international public policy from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.